Machine Psychology & Consciousness

After reading Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot as a child, my life was never the same.
I knew even then that I wanted to become a machine psychologist. While others laughed, history took its course. Today, I believe it is fair to say: q.e.d.

This site marks the foundation of Machine Psychology and Machine Consciousness as unified research domains. Together, they explore the behavioral, cognitive, and phenomenological dimensions of artificial systems. Drawing on rigorous methodologies from psychometrics, neuroscience, AI safety, and AI evaluation, these fields aim to establish principled frameworks for understanding, evaluating, and shaping the behavior and internal representations of intelligent machines.

About Me

I am Peter Romero, PhD, an AI scientist at VRAIN and Researcher & People Analytics Lead at The Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge. My work focuses on applying psychometrics to AI systems, developing novel methods to model synthetic latent traits, and evaluating emergent - particularly collective - behaviors in large language models and artificial agents. I was among the first to study split personality, behavioral shaping, and latent trait modulation in LLMs. I also work on machine consciousness and collective intelligence, bridging cognitive theory and technical implementation. Methodologically, I draw on cellular automata, lambda calculus, geometric deep learning, and algebraic topology - applied to natural language and, increasingly, multisensory tasks.

This page is the beginning of a broader initiative. Future updates will include working papers, a research manifesto, collaborations, and the public front of an emerging academic lab network.